PeacePeople said:Apmex never ran out. The stock they've had for the last 4 months are from canceled orders on the preorders they had back in August 2011. Same with the 1/2 and 2oz. They had them all sold and because of delayed delivery they had a lot of people cancel, charged them restocking fees and then raised the prices to these levels, and higher for a while.
The middleman always makes money, if they're ruthless enough. Its a free market (well, sorta free. OK, maybe free, Oh, all right a rigged market where you look after your mates and sod the retail-paying masses), so if the price is too high for you, don't buy from Apmex.
Buy instead from an ethical (albeit small and poor) dealer, such as, hmmm GoldStackers and help them raise their profile with the Mint so they get larger allocations in future. Leave Apmex holding the coins until they drop their price. Let them hold long enough and they'll reduce their demand on Perth Mint because they can't move the stock at their desired price.
Perth Mint's generous allocation to Apmex seems to allow Apmex to call the shots in the marketplace wrt pricing. Time to muck that up properly.